


coagulate

by againstmygreeleaf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Arguing, Blood and Gore, Explosions, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stitches, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17951642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/againstmygreeleaf/pseuds/againstmygreeleaf
Summary: An ongoing collection of one-shots for Bad Things Happen Bingo!1: (VLD) Anger Born of Worry- Wherein fem!Hunk scares the daylights out of fem!Lance, not once, but twice.2: (VLD) Cradling Someone In Their Arms- Wherein Pidge cannot carry a heavily wounded Hunk to safety, no matter how hard she tries.





	1. (VLD) Space: Anger Born of Worry

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, hey! 
> 
> So. I have like, five, maybe even six other unfinished works right now. On this pseud and a couple others. But I saw people were doing this and I got excited because it looks like fun! I miss doing requests and fills on ff.net and dreamwidth, back in the day and whatnot. On this account I've posted mostly VLD, so I decided to start it off with VLD myself. However, the details for what I'll write for this bingo, including the other fandoms can be found **  
> **  
> [here.](https://greatgreengremlin.tumblr.com/post/183120430519/despite-having-several-unfinished-works-at-the)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the rest of these, I'll be taking requests, but I decided to start off this one myself just as like, an example of typical length and what my writing looks like for other requesters who haven't read my stuff. 
> 
> So here's AU fem!Hunk and fem!Lance because I love them and I wanted to kick this off with VLD, but it's the end of February. I only write girls in February because as we all know, February is the month for ladies.

Something Lana will never tell anyone is that during their first meeting, Huihana scared the crap out of her. Only for the first thirty seconds or so, sure, but in those thirty seconds the fear was real. She took two steps into the room the Garrison assigned her, took one look at her roommate, and felt her blood turn to ice.

That chick was freaking huge. Biceps like boulders, fists like frozen turkeys. She could probably take Lana’s head off with one punch. Nervously, Lana gulped, trying to think of something suave to say, straining to shape her mouth into a confident smirk so this Amazonian stranger wouldn’t smell her fear. Then the giantess advanced and before Lana could escape, those brawny arms encircled her, deftly lifted her right off the floor…and pulled her into a hug.

“Mmph!” Lana found herself pressed up against the soft, plentiful pudge of her roommate’s round midsection, and her face smushed into the pillows of her even softer, coconut sized breasts.

“Nice to meet you, new roomie!” chirped a voice of pure sunshine.

She gave Lana a hearty squeeze and returned her to the floor.

“So I’m Huihana, most people call me Hana for short,” she paused, amusement squiggling over her features as she blinked at Lana’s name tag. “Guess that means we’re Hana and Lana, huh? Pfft, Hana and Lana. We could totally headline a sitcom.”

“Heh, yeah.” Lana gave a chuckle, feeling herself melt in relief.

“I’ll help you put away your stuff, but let’s eat the muffins first. They’re best while they’re still warm.”

“You made muffins?”

“Uh-huh.”

Hana showed her the small oven she’d hidden in the closet. It was about the size of one of those toy ones, but Lana could tell it was made of spare parts. The metals didn’t match and the screws were different sizes.

“Let me guess, you’re here to be an engineer.”

“Yep.” Hana smiled and pulled a small muffin pan out of her makeshift oven and if the tantalizing aroma of apple cinnamon was anything to go by, mismatched metal didn’t prevent it from working.

Lana took a muffin and shook her head. Hana was a freaking teddy bear. No hecking way could she ever scare Lana again.

* * *

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” Lana scolds, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hana rolls her eyes and keeps rolling the orange dough in front of her. “As if you always do what you’re supposed to do.”

“This isn’t about me!” Lana barks, still too shaken to keep herself from snapping. “You’re a mess, you can hardly stand up!”

Hana shoots her a look that might’ve been dangerous if she were actually standing steady. But she isn’t steady at all, she’s tottering like a butterfly could knock her over and Lana isn’t sure if it’s making her nervous or furious.

“What I am is sore and stressed, and not in the mood,” she warns irritably.

“Oh, you’re not in the mood?” Lana scoffs. “Don’t even. I’m the one who gets to be mad! You almost got yourself killed!”

“We almost get ourselves killed all the time,” Hana grumbles bitterly, flipping the dough and rolling some more.

“This was different! You know we’re supposed to be extra careful since the pods got hacked, but you ran back into a Galra infested tunnel for no reason!”

“No reason my ass, I was checking for civilians.” Hana pauses to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“Civilians who weren’t there!” Lana huffs, grasping at her hair in frustration. “BLIP tech told us the tunnel was clear!”

“And like I already explained to you and everybody else, the dust storms on that planet were interfering with our tech. Our comms were screwy, our scanners were screwy, we had no reason to trust in the BLIP tech!” Hana gives the dough an exasperated whack with the rolling pin and Lana can see the immediate regret in her eyes as the movement sends repercussions through her battered body. Recoiling, she hisses through her teeth.

“Damn it! Ugh, just come off it. I clearly did the right thing.”

“How? No one was down there!”  
  
“But someone could’ve been down there,” Hana insists hotly. “We couldn’t rely on the tech to tell us one way or the other, so I checked for myself. It’s what a paladin would do.”

Lana chews her lip. She understands where her friend is coming from, but she doesn’t have any forthcoming fuzzy feelings for her decision either. It was too reckless. Lana doesn’t like to see any of her team in danger, but this was the kind of stunt she would at least expect from Keith or Shiro. Not Hana. It was a stunt that blindsided her coming from cautious, nervous Huihana.

“You should have at least called one of us for backup.”

And what she means is, _you should have called_ me _for backup._

“I didn’t think I had enough time.” Hana gripes, maneuvering her way around the kitchen. “It’s over and done with, so just lay off.”

Lana feels the worst of her fury dying away, but she still isn’t happy. This was too much, too close a call. She can’t just swallow it with a smile and pretend she wasn’t terrified to her core. Not with the echoes of Hana’s scream still rattling around like vengeful wraiths inside her head.

“Oh crap…I’m bleeding,” Hana mutters, yanking Lana out of her thoughts.

The red stain spreads through her robe and Lana gasps, scrambling over.

“Don’t want to say I told you so, but this is exactly why you should be in bed,” she says tersely, hiking Hana’s arm over her shoulder.

Hana is still the bigger of the two, but Lana is tougher than she looks and more than strong enough to offer her support. Hana accepts it wearily, and Lana becomes increasingly worried when she fails to fire back some retort. Lana studies her more closely and frowns.

Drops of sweat sprinkle Hana’s face, headband practically drenched with it. The pain is naked in her eyes, glistening with the mist of unshed tears. Her jaw tightens, teeth clenching as she fails to bite back a whine.

“Come on,” Lana encourages. “Just a little farther.”

“A little?” Hana shoots her an exhausted look. “The infirmary’s on the other side of the castle.”

“But your room is right around the corner, and Coran helped me stock it with all the right aftercare supplies while you were out being a bad patient.”

“I wasn’t trying to be a bad patient,” she mumbles. “Today just caught up with me and sitting still in silence wasn’t exactly doing wonders for my anxiety.”

“Yeah, well you bleeding through your clothes isn’t exactly doing wonders for _my_ mental health, either,” Lana retorts.

Hana must be too spent to keep arguing because all she does is glower.

When they reach her bedroom, Lana parks her down on the bed and slides the robe off her shoulders. The bandages encasing her torso are soaked scarlet and it sends chills up Lana’s spine. Even so, she tries to keep herself together. She opens the impressive supply kit Coran prepared and paws through until she finds the sutures.

“So you’re gonna patch me up even though you’re pissed?”

“Of course I am, jerk face.”

Lana gets the packet of numbing gel and the scissors, kneels down, eye level with the wound. She snips through the layers of gauze and they fall loosely to the bed. A wide absorbent pad remains, taped over her side. It’s sodden with blood that smears onto Lana’s fingertips as she removes it as gently as possibly.

What lurks beneath is like something out of a slasher flick. Lana is a tad nervous about tending to it because it’s such a gruesome injury, but she doesn’t want to admit that aloud. The blast from the sentry’s gun shaved off a good hunk of flesh. The aperture of the wound is irritated where Coran had to trim away ruined skin. The layer of fat beneath the remaining skin peeks out a bit, bumpy and glazed in blood. The open meat in the middle is this sickening, moist, melon pink.

“Congratulations,” Lana offers sarcastically. “You managed to pop all of your stitches.”

Hana grimaces. “I don’t wanna know the graphic details.”

“No,” she agrees grimly. “You don’t.”

Lana pinches the tip of the scissors over the broken thread of the old stitches and carefully pulls them through. Hana’s fist clenches into the blankets, a tight look of discomfort twisting her features.

Some of Lana’s frustration ebbs.

“This is the worst part and it’s almost over, okay?”

Hana nods tensely.

Lana removes the long, thin thread and discards it. She opens the numbing gel and carefully spreads it along the in tact skin around the wound.

“I’m sorry, okay?” she says softly. “I know I shouldn’t be mad at you, you did what you felt was right—“

“You mean what was right,” Hana breaks in stubbornly.

“…I thought you died,” Lana admits somberly.

“What?” Hana’s jaw drops.

Lana purses her lips as she opens the suture set. “It was the way you screamed. You’re super jumpy, so I’ve heard you scream a thousand times before, but never like that. That scream chilled me to the bone, I could just hear the hurt in it…and then when we started screaming back for you to answer, you didn’t. We— I was begging you to answer me but all I got was radio silence.”

“I scared you,” Hana concludes quietly.

“Yeah.” Lana huffs, poking the needle into the flesh. Evidently the gel is doing its job, because her friend doesn’t even flinch. “Scared me more than anything else ever has. You’re in front of me right now in one piece, talking to me, and I’m still kinda shook up over it.”

“Aw, Lana…”

Lana sews quietly, occasionally glancing up to make sure Hana’s tolerating it okay. She’s fiddling with her fingers, gaze pointedly fixed on the wall.

“Look, I’m sorry. Not for what I did, but for scaring you.”

“I don’t really blame you,” Lana says, finishing off the stitches. “This is war, we get hurt. But can you at least be a good patient for the rest of the day?”

“I will if you stick around to distract me.”

“I’m supposed to let you rest,” Lana mutters, distracted as she fishes through the supplies.

Hana groans quietly and shakes her head. “I can’t. You don’t think I got scared too? It’s so quiet in here, all I can do is relive getting blasted. It’s freaking me out.”

She takes another absorbent pad and thick roll of gauze, wincing sympathetically. “Alright. I’ll stay. Maybe I can get Pidge to bring us a projector so we can watch a movie or something.”

Hana lets out a sigh of relief. Lana returns to her bedside and strips the sterile packaging off the pad. She plasters it over the freshly stitched wound and gingerly pats it down. Hana gives a wince and she stops short.

“Too rough?”

“Nah. The gel wore off, that’s all. It’s sore.”

“I’ll bet.” It’s a hell of a wound, after all. Wide, deep, and butt ugly.

Lana unwinds a length of gauze and makes an effort to be especially gentle as she bandages her, starting from the bottom and moving upward. She smooths out as many of the wrinkles as she can and tries to secure the gauze around Hana’s torso without pulling too tight.

“Alright, almost there. Just hold your tits.”

“Huh? I’m not rushing you.” Hana puzzles, brow furrowing.

“I meant literally, my busty bestie,” Lana chuckles. “They’re in the way.”

“My bad.” Grimacing, Hana sheepishly hefts them up and Lana wraps the last layer around. She finishes up with small adhesive strips to keep the bandage in place and gives it the slightest of tugs to make sure they’re effective.

“All done,” she says brightly, pulling back. “That should keep it clean and safe. Just try not to bump into anything and don’t abuse the rolling pin anymore.”

“Thanks. I’d hug you if I could.” Hana sighs and slides her arms back into the sleeves of her robe. She raises her shoulders to get it all the way on— at least, she attempts to. Pain crosses her face halfway through the motion and the fabric slides back down.

“And I can’t do that either.”

She tucks her head down like a grumpy turtle sulking in its shell. Lana wordlessly pulls the garment up for her.

“Gonna do everything for me?” Hana lifts a tired brow.

“If I have to,” Lana says, crossing her arms. “As long as you promise not to scare me like that again.”

“If it were a promise I could keep, I would,” she says wistfully.

They gaze at each other a moment, an understanding passed. Lana deflates and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, leaning forward to pull back Hana’s blanket.

“Go on, climb in.”

“Could’ve done that much myself,” Hana mutters, sounding more weary than offended.

Lana studies her as she draws herself up, stiffly braced back on her elbows. Pain speaks in every movement, from her legs’ halting stretch, to the low breath hissed between her teeth as she carefully reclines to the pillows. Lana lightly drapes the blanket over her.

“Lemme get you something for the pain—“ Lana turns to go and stops short as Hana’s hand encircles hers.

She tugs with surprising strength for somebody who looks two seconds away from passing out, and Lana’s eyes pop wide as she gracelessly flounders to the bed.

Lacing their fingers together, Hana gives her a tender look. “This is enough. I feel better already.”

“Liar,” Lana huffs, crinkling her nose.

“No, really. Holding hands has the potential to reduce pain. Several studies suggest it produces an analgesic effect.”

Lana pauses, studying her face for any trace of deceit. Normally having genius friends is pretty cool because they can explain complicated stuff to you and help you ace your homework. But sometimes genius friends can mess with you by rewording bullshit to sound all science-y and smart. One time Hana and Pidge nearly convinced her that the moon was indeed made of some form of petrified cheese.

“For real?”

“Yeah, for real,” Hana insists, smiling gently. “When we hold hands our brainwaves begin to synchronize. It’s like communicating empathy through touch and it makes people feel better.”

“Huh.” Lana looks down at their hands and squeezes Hana’s a little tighter.

With Hana’s hand in hers, solid and warm, Lana is beginning to feel better too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Not gonna lie, this is vaguely based on me and my friend having a convo and concluding that fem!Hunk would have big boobs.~~


	2. (VLD) Space: Cradling Someone In Their Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Anonymous said:_   
>  _Hi! I found you through the BTHB tumblr, and liked the way you write! If it’s okay, can I ask for one of your squares? It would be “Cradling Someone in Their Arms” with Hunk and Pidge, but it’s Pidge trying to cradle a heavily injured Hunk in her arms while they wait for rescue and feeling guilty because she isn’t able to carry him to safety herself. Would that be okay?_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Um, would it be okay? No, it would be wonderful! What a fun prompt, I hope I filled it to your liking. Thanks for playing bingo with me!

“I’m not sure why Allura wants me to hack here,” Pidge mutters, squinting as her rudimentary translator converts the holographic characters into messages she can make decent enough sense of. “It’s mostly about the exports. The fruit exports.”

Hunk shrugs, absently readjusting his grip on his bayard. “The more recon we have, the better.”

“Mm, I guess. Still seems kinda weird though, just reading about shipping fruit. And not like, blueprints for weapons of mass destruction or battleships or something.”

“I don’t think it’s that weird,” Hunk says. “Look at Earth’s history, tons of places were colonized for the exploitation of their food resources, including fruit.”

“True,” Pidge admits, fingers deftly dancing over the keypad.

“And those export reports are probably going to lead us to our next destination.”

“Also true,” she agrees, sighing. “I just wish our assignment was more exciting. Everybody else is kicking butt right now, taking over the command center. And we’re just here downloading transport records.”

“Are you kidding?” Hunk scoffs. “This is a great change of pace! I for one, am tired of being shot at, running into traps, and getting motion sickness flying around laser puke fired by giant planet eating monsters.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. While she doesn’t exactly enjoy any of the things he’s just described, per se, it doesn’t make looking over fruit exports any less boring. When they get back to the castle Lance is probably going to be bragging about how he did this cool thing or that cool thing, or gushing about some badass thing Allura got to do. While she…now knows the Galra character for ‘citrus.’

“I am gonna go do a quick patrol of the perimeter,” he says.

“And leaving your super important post as my bodyguard?” Pidge mumbles, briefly glancing over.

Surely Hunk picks up on the sarcasm, but he answers earnestly.

“Making sure nobody’s sneaking up on us is part of guarding. I’ll be fast.”

Hunk slips from the room and Pidge returns her attention to the screen. Yeah, okay, so this stuff is useful on some level or another. But her eyes are glazing over and she can’t help but feel that fighting with her team would be more useful. Definitely more interesting. This wasn’t even a challenge to hack.

Her comms link gives a soft click, and Shiro’s voice comes through.

“Pidge, status update.”

“Good news is, I could crack this database in my sleep. Bad news is, these reports are putting me to sleep. How are things on your end?”

She hears a crash and loud curse from Keith in the background.

“I’ll get back to you.” Shiro clicks off.

Pidge chews her lower lip. About half the files are downloaded now, hopefully it shouldn’t be too much longer before she and Hunk can regroup with the rest of the team. Maybe actually get in on some of the action.

She’s barely completed the thought when she hears the unmistakable firing of a blaster. For a heartbeat she thinks Shiro’s clicked back in, but it’s followed by a yell that is unmistakably Hunk. She wastes no time springing out of the chair and hurrying into the hall.

Pidge sprints toward the echoes of Hunk’s bayard. She materializes her own mid-stride, zapping at a probe that looks like an upgraded Rover before it can lock onto her. She doesn’t stop to reprogram this one, tearing toward the continued noises of combat up ahead.

The violet lit corridor curves and Pidge swerves to avoid the scraps of a blasted sentry. It’s a small patrol, led by a Galra in standard armor. The intact sentry takes aim at her and Pidge drops, somersaulting forward. Surging up, she jabs her bayard into its torso and zaps, currents crackling audibly.

It crashes to the floor and as she whips around, her breath catches. Hunk fires his bayard at the same time the soldier throws this blinking disk no bigger than a sand dollar. The soldier goes down, but the disk hits its mark, snapping to Hunk’s cuirass with a metallic _clink_.

It immediately begins blinking faster, emitting a shrill series of beeps.

They both realize it’s a detonator at the same time, locking gazes.

“GETITOFF!” Pidge shrieks, so panicked it sounds like one big, messed up word.

And Hunk tries but he’s not fast enough, and the last Pidge sees of him before it goes off with an earsplitting peal is the nakedly terrified look on his face. It’s a look that floods her with cold and she will never, ever forget it. If she survives this war and sixty years down the line develops dementia, the helpless horror in Hunk’s eyes will be the last memory to haunt her.

Hunk is blown back far, _so_ far, and hits the metal floor with a thud that makes the lunch lurch up her throat. Pidge scrambles over in a mad dash, throwing herself down beside him. The sight of the damage is just as nauseating and Pidge has to choke back a gag, clamping a hand around her mouth.

From waist up, Hunk doesn’t really have a suit anymore. Just a few ripped scraps of black fabric. His entire torso is a mess of shrapnel and fragments of shattered armor. As frightening as that is, at least they’re keeping some of the blood inside.

A gaping wound in the center of his chest gushes like a geyser, so deep Pidge could plunge both hands in and touch the pulp. Its inside looks like a sliced pomegranate, all nubbly and viscerally crimson. With a very quiet groan, Hunk lifts his head.

And Pidge gasps, heart skipping as she cups his face, charily positioning her hands to avoid the shards embedded in his cheeks.

“You’re alive, oh, thank goodness you’re alive! Hunk, we gotta get you out of here! C-Can you stand?”

Hunk blinks at her blearily, headband absorbing most of the blood from a scalp wound she can’t quite see because of his hair, but a few droplets seep through it and catch in his eyelashes.

“Dn’t catch that, Pidge, m’ears are still ringing.”

And she notices that those too have red streaming from them. Damn it, the blast probably ruptured his eardrums.

“You need help!” she nearly shouts. “Can you stand up?”

Hunk blinks at her again, a vague look of confusion passing over his features.

“Think something ’sploded,” he slurs without acknowledging her at all, eyes fluttering closed again.

“No, no, no! Hunk, stay with me!”

But he wasn’t entirely with her to begin with and easily slips back out. Pidge gently lowers his head and tries to formulate a plan. Hunk is still bleeding copiously and those are just the injuries she can see. There’s probably a ton of damage on the inside too, he needs a pod as soon as possible.

Green isn’t far from here. She blends in well with the dense forestry of fruit trees and berry bushes that cover this planet. Dragging Hunk to Green would be faster than trying to explain what happened to her teammates and directing them back here.

Pidge removes her own cuirass and tears the padded lining out of it. With shaky fingers, she packs it into Hunk’s chest wound. Pressing down, she chews her lip and watches as it absorbs the blood. Before moving him anywhere, at the very least, she needs to stanch this bleeding.

“I can carry you,” she says aloud, hoping to make it true as the lining soaks beneath her hands. “Green isn’t far and we’ve all been working out, right? This is fine.”

Pidge removes her belt next and rips the lining out of that, folding it over top the first layer and pushing down with all her weight. Hunk twitches a bit beneath her, mewls out a soft, hurt sound without opening his eyes.

When his bleeding seems under control, she lets go and clicks back into her comm link.

“Something happened,” she announces quickly. “Hunk’s hurt bad and he needs a pod like, yesterday.”

“How responsive is he?” Shiro asks, concerned but collected.

“He talked incoherently for like two seconds before he passed out. He can’t wait, I’m gonna carry him to Green and head back to the castle.”

“You think you can carry Hunk?” Keith asks skeptically.

“If people can flip cars during adrenaline rushes, then I can carry Hunk,” she snaps, more frazzled than she intends. “It’s not like I have to vault him over my head, I just have to get him to Green, and I mean, I really have to you guys, he— he’s not doing good.”

“We’re almost done here and even if we weren’t, this takes precedence,” Allura says quickly. “Lance, Keith, finish up. Pidge, do what you can for Hunk, Shiro and I are on our way to help.”

“Copy.” Pidge doesn’t wait for anybody else’s affirmatives before she turns her attention back on Hunk.

She tries not to think too hard about things like logic or physics as she hooks her arms under his. Either Hunk’s clavicle his broken or he’s dislocated a shoulder, because she can feel the unnatural way his arm shifts. When she looks down she thinks she can see a bulge that doesn’t belong there too.

“Okay, here we go.”

Pidge digs her heels in and pulls back with everything she’s got. She begs her body to gift her with one of those rare, miraculous adrenaline rushes that allows everyday people to flip cars off children. She doesn’t need to flip a car, she doesn’t even need to carry Hunk, really, she just needs to drag him.

“Come on,” she pleads, desperately trying to pull even harder.

It takes an enormous effort and all of Pidge’s strength to drag him three steps backward and even that leaves her spine aching. She grits her teeth and uses every muscle in her body to pull him another step and doesn’t even accomplish that. She slips, falling hard on her bum and losing her grip on Hunk.

It’s just impossible.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers, shaking her head against the sting of tears. “Hunk, I’m so, so sorry.”

She can’t carry him anywhere. But maybe she can hold him, at least, and monitor him. Guard him until Shiro and Allura get here.

Pidge sits up, gently takes Hunk’s head in her hands, crossing her legs. She pulls him into her lap as much as she can, which, while a bit difficult, is far less taxing than dragging him. She cradles his head against her chest, worriedly fluffing her fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, even though she knows he can’t hear her. “If this were the other way around, you’d already have me in Yellow.”

She has her bayard near in case any new threat shows up. She doubts it, since it seems like the rest of her team handled things at the command center. That soldier Hunk shot still hasn’t moved. Maybe he’s dead and that’s perfectly okay with her.

“I should’ve been satisfied with boring,” she mumbles, guilt churning in her stomach.

Pidge would rather read a thousand stupid fruit export reports than be sitting here like this, listening to Hunk’s breath get shorter and shallower and too weak to get him the help he needs. She hates this, the helplessness. She hates that she couldn’t force an adrenaline miracle out of herself.

Guilt continues to gnaw at her insides. She knows it’s not her fault that she is small and Hunk is big, but it feels like her fault when it’s the obstacle preventing him from receiving treatment right now. The pad of her finger unintentionally locates the head wound she couldn’t see earlier, brushing over the split in the skin.

Anxiety mounting, Pidge begins to rock back and forth, hugging Hunk close. She quits as soon as she hears the grinding noise that rises from what must be his probably broken clavicle. She goes back to stroking his hair instead, staring at the dicey rise and fall of his bloodied chest.

When Shiro and Allura finally show up, it feels like eons later.

“I couldn’t carry him,” Pidge admits as they survey the damage, her guilt coiling even tighter around her chest.

Of course, neither of them seem even remotely surprised. They probably realized what she should have sooner, that it simply wasn’t a feasible feat no matter how badly she wanted it to be.

“We’ll get him back faster in Red than Green anyway,” Allura says, forcing a smile although Pidge can tell she’s worried.

Shiro helps arrange Hunk in Allura’s arms, positioning him a way that’s hopefully the least stressful on his injuries. Allura doesn’t actually need help with the actual lifting, however. She simply shape shifts to be broader, lengthens her arms to accommodate Hunk’s girth.

Pidge recovers Hunk’s bayard and the drive with the export transcripts. She wishes she could at least be with Hunk, cradling him in the back of Red. But she has her own lion to fly. Hunk will probably be safer in Allura’s arms, since her magic has healing properties.

Or at the least, revitalizing properties. And that distinction sinks to her stomach like a stone.

* * *

Lance usually gets the first hug when Hunk is out of the pod, but this time Pidge beats him to the punch and she kind of thinks he lets her. It hasn’t exactly been a secret that she’s been on edge since what happened. She hurries to Hunk so fast she barely pumps the breaks in time to avoid an outright collision, throwing her arms around his middle and squeezing ferociously.

“Whoa,” he murmurs hazily. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she greets warmly, propping her chin on his belly and peeking up at him. “It’s good to have you back.”

A small, sort of sleepy smile unfurls on Hunk’s face.

“Good to be back,” he says, gently patting her head.


End file.
